by Lana Sky
And neither of us can seem to let go.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hours later, Vadim and Ena have temporarily boarded up the terrace door. Irina is gone to only God knows where and Magda—somehow—is sleeping in her bed. I linger near her more than I should, planting kisses over her forehead and smoothing my hands along her back until I’m sure she’s asleep.
When I creep downstairs to check the progress of the cleanup, I find Vadim, leaning against a counter, his face in his hands. “She killed two guards,” he explains, fixing me with a haggard, exhausted expression.
“Is she dead?”
He sighs. “No. Though she easily could be, with the amount of insulin in her system. But… I couldn’t let Magdalene grow up believing she killed her own mother. Irina doesn’t deserve to impact her life any more than she already has.”
“So where is she?” I gather up the nerve to ask, fearful of the answer.
And he knows it. “Do you want me to say I let her go?” he wonders tiredly, shooting me a searching glance. “That she repented and is in prison forever and will never harm another soul? I will not lie to you—”
“And I don’t want you to. So, tell me the truth,” I prod.
“Why? Do you want to be disgusted? Do you want to hear that I sold her to the highest bidder? That the bitch will suffer for ever daring to touch my daughter? My family? Would that bother you?”
“It might,” I admit. “But I think I’ll get over it.”
He cocks his head, not expecting that answer. Maybe he can hear it in my voice—I’m not lying. Compelled to explain, I let the true depth of my conflicted emotions wash over me. Disgust. Fear. Hate.
All of those things old Tiffy—even in the midst of her divorce—could never imagine feeling to this extent.
“Magda jumped in the pool just to keep Irina from taking her away.” I can’t disguise my horror. “How can a seven-year-old be forced to choose between drowning or her own mother? She can’t swim. She was that afraid of her. If I didn’t hear her… If I didn’t get to her in time…”
“She’s intelligent,” Vadim states. I’m in his arms before I know it, crushed to his chest, and I relent to the embrace. “She knew you’d get to her in time.”
And she must have known that Irina wouldn’t even bother. The thought is so grim that any lingering unease I may have felt at her fate is instantly washed away.
As the Sunday school teacher deep within me might say—an eye for an eye.
But I appear to be the only one in a grudge-holding mood—one glaring event of the day stands out, and I rear back, poised to watch his expression.
“You and Maxim…”
He winces, his lips curling.
But I’m ruthless. “You brought Maxim with you. He helped you.” I sound so childish, like I’m taunting him—but I can’t help the silly glee that has me grinning. “You two were quite the dynamic duo—”
“I met him at the club,” Vadim says, his tone far more somber than mine. “I intended to discuss our mutual headache. As it seems, our interests converged far more quickly than I initially thought.”
Some of my excitement deflates at his frown. His eyes take on that distant gleam that they do when only one person is on his mind. “Magda called you,” I say, my voice rasping. “God, she must have been terrified.”
His brow furrows in surprise. “Commanding actually,” he says, a rare smile sneaking onto his mouth. “She demanded I come to rescue you. I tried to convince her to hide somewhere safe and wait for me, but she hung up.” He looks torn between fear and grudging admiration.
“It seems she didn’t just inherit your good looks,” I tease, stepping into him again, letting my head rest against his chest. “She got your stubbornness too.”
Chuckling, he brings his hand to my scalp, cradling me against him. “It seems she picked up some traits from you as well,” he murmurs, sounding amused once more. “Your remarkable ability to enthrall those around you, for one. I only had to say her name for Maxim to come.”
His voice deepens, revealing just how much that confuses him. His brother came when he needed him the most.
Could the rift between those two ever be mended?
I picture two beautiful little girls, and I’m hopeful that they might be up to the task.
It should be impossible to expect things to return to normal after the events of the past few days. In some ways, they still aren’t. Vadim and I wake up to find Magda squirming in between us, her bear firmly wedged under her arm, her fanny pack still on.
But she’s the first one to spring from the mattress, padding downstairs, chattering excitedly.
“Can Ainsley sleep over here today?” she asks over a bowl of cereal. She seems oblivious to the fact that Vadim and I are perched on opposite ends of her, waiting for the second we might have to swoop in and comfort her.
The pink sundress she’s wearing exposes her arms—and the mottled bruises down the length of one. Vadim was concerned enough by them to have Milton come over in the middle of the night and examine her. Supposedly, there is no lasting damage.
She’ll be fine.
But she doesn’t even seem to notice. “Huh?” she prods after shoveling a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. She eyes Vadim questioningly until he snaps to awareness.
“Yes, ma chérie?”
“Can we go back to California soon? I want to be on a boat.”
“Of course. We can leave by the end of the week,” he ruffles her braids, but the line of his jaw betrays concern. He didn’t miss the same note in her voice that I did—the same way she’d “asked” to sleep in our bed for a week after being spooked by Maxim.
But once she finishes her food and skips off to the garden—watched over by Ena, there’s no sign of trauma at all. Which is a testament to childish fortitude because I can’t even look at the terrace door—newly replaced overnight—without flinching.
“I asked Milton for recommendations for a child psychologist,” Vadim tells me as we clear the dishes. “Once we settle on one, I’ll have her start regular sessions.” He moves toward the stairs next, and I find myself following him, too distracted by my own worries for Magda.
“What if Irina comes after us again?” It’s a fear that won’t stop nibbling, and it leads my thoughts down a dark path. Like the musing that next time, Magda won’t be the one to inject the bitch with a lethal dose of insulin.
“She won’t,” Vadim says. He sounds so damn sure of that. I start to question, but something in his gaze warns me not to. Some aspects of his world, I’m better off not knowing about.
So I turn my attention to what I’d much rather study—him. He grunts in surprise when I slink toward him and press my body against the hardness of his. We’re in the bedroom, and the row of windows makes for a fitting surface for him to push me against while ensuring we can both still see Magda frolicking about her budding garden, Ena in tow.
I stand on tiptoe and nibble along his jaw, tugging at the front of his slacks.
“Wait.” He looks pained as he grasps my wrists, halting my assault. His eyes take on that dark, wary gleam as if he’s hesitating on the verge of a decision. Sighing, he relents and releases me to reach into his pocket. “I haven’t asked you to marry me,” he states while presenting a small black box balanced on the center of his palm. “I still won’t. Not until you’re ready. But…”
He lifts the lid of the box, and I sway at the sheer opulence of what lurks beneath it. A ring—but one so delicately, beautifully crafted that I know it received the same careful attention to detail that his kinky endeavors did. It’s beyond anything I could have imagined, and my throat tightens.
“Vadim…”
“I want you to know what awaits you if you do accept,” he explains, his gaze alight with such raw emotion my heart swells, unable to contain it all.
Gently, I place my hand over his, forcing him to lower the ring. “I can’t accept this,” I tell him, hating the tension that tighten
s his jaw—the disappointment he can’t even try to hide.
Disappointment that turns to confusion as I sink to my knees and return my attention to the front of his slacks.
“I do believe that it is my turn to propose.” I free his cock and promptly tease the tip of his piercing with my tongue. “Mr. Vadim Gorgoshev,” I declare in between devious tastes of him. “Will you marry me?”
I think he says yes, nearly drowned out by his groans as I take him as far into my mouth as I can.
When I draw back, he looks dazed. Like a man trapped in a dream, one he definitely doesn’t want to wake up from.
“There is one condition,” I tell him, though I’m not even sure how serious a thought it is. “I’ve always wanted a double wedding.”
He raises an eyebrow, but when I curl my fist around him and press my lips against the crown, he promptly loses his ability to argue.
And if this proposal is anything to go off of, this marriage won’t be anything like my last. My heart swells with that knowledge, and I watch him through my lashes, prepared to earn the ring I know lurks in the box still clenched in his fist. His face is the picture of awe. Rapture…
Horror.
“Damn,” he whispers a split second before my ears pick up the noise triggering his alarm—tiny footsteps skipping down the hall in our direction. I barely manage to lurch to my feet—while he wrestles himself back into his pants—before the door opens and Magda marches in.
“Mr. Ena wants you,” she says to Vadim, her button nose wrinkled in confusion as Vadim staggers to her side, still smoothing his clothing into place.
“H-He told you to tell me?”
Magda nods while I suppress a grin. Sending a child to do his dirty work could be a hallmark of the old bodyguard slacking—or his knowledge of what he might have interrupted as well as the inkling that his employer would spare poor Magda his wrath. Which he does with a wry grin that warms me down to my core. Taking her hand, he leads the way downstairs, where Ena lurks in the kitchen, scowling at the scene visible through the newly replaced terrace door.
“Ainsley!” Shirking her father’s grasp, Magda surges forward, and Ena has just enough time to wrench open the sliding glass door before she can careen right through it.
Sure enough, her target is already racing to meet her, her blond hair flying out behind her. Smiling, I scan her wake for a familiar figure and promptly feel my mouth drop open.
“Jesus Christ,” I whisper. I have to resist the urge to rub my eyes just to make sure the stoic figure striding across the lawn is real.
“What the hell does he want?” Vadim murmurs, though he sounds genuinely curious rather than hostile—another fact contributing to my dropped jaw.
But his question winds up presenting its own answer—it’s obvious to anyone watching just what Maxim wants.
“Uncle Max!” Magda’s voice is audible from here, chirpy in the familiar way that took her own father weeks of trust-building to achieve. She skips to him, looping her hand within his, chatting animatedly the entire while.
And as his dark eyes take her in, they ignite with a warmth I figure might be visible from space. His posture relaxes as his lips quirk in the semblance of an expression that on any other man could be called a smile.
As Ainsley claims his other hand, I’m convinced that, foreboding figure or not, his heart has been stolen more than once.
As has the love of the man standing beside me. His hand flattens against my waist as if anchoring me to him is the only way he can stop himself from marching forward. Mistrust is always his first instinct—especially where Maxim is concerned—but in this case, I can sense the effort he exerts to stay still.
To watch.
To let his brother enjoy the simple gift they’ve both been denied for so long—family.
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Lana Sky is a reclusive writer in the United States who spends most of her time daydreaming about complex male characters and legless cats. She writes mostly paranormal romance, in between watching reruns of Ab Fab and drinking iced tea. Only iced tea.
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